Guild Wars 2

Just read the FB post on the breast cancer awareness day that happens every year with everyone dressing up in pink.

I was thinking it’d be really cool, interesting and fantastic if they released a new gem shop item around the time in which a large portion or all of it’s earnings would be donated for the cause.

It’d earn my respect.

Two lackluster updates in a row.

The Tequatl update had me hoping for big when all it did was change Teq and add a timer to most other bosses. Before the Teq update went live I was hoping there would be surprise content revealed last minute like the Queen’s Speech one, sadly that didn’t happen.

Suddenly right after the underwhelming Teq update comes out, we have a new update which seems to have less than the previous. I’m also not expecting any last minute reveal since the Teq update removed those expectations from me.

Now getting into my main issue;
The fact these two lackluster updates are the only non festive updates we had in a very long time. That coupled with the fact we have October and December ahead of us which are two very festive months, just leaves me sad.

I only speak up on this subject because I’m genuinely bored. The SAB update was a festival gone too far. It was exhausting to have to do all those little games, so much so I just didn’t do any of the SAB content.

I’m finding it harder and harder to want to come back and play the game. I play Guild Wars to play Guild Wars, not to play some party mini games.

I enjoy festivals and wouldn’t mind them if they were for example some 30% of the new content added. Instead they’re more along the lines of 70% of the new content added, while the 30% being non festival updates don’t seem to have as much depth.

To end, I guess all I’m saying is that I’m hoping for more bulky and epic non festival updates, the game needs it. Right now I have all this new ascended gear to work towards, but what’s the point when there’s nothing for me to use the gear on?

Just wondering if there’s anyone else out there who feels the same, and your thoughts on this situation?

I wish the new TA update would add something big and significant to the world, like the Molten Alliance did. Something for us to do since I’m left with little of interesting to do.

Her 1 hit kill attacks are by far the least of my problems. Both the AoE and the exploding shadows are extremely avoidable and predictable.

However, some of the real issues with this fight are;

1: The camera and visuals.
When a whirlpool appears near the walls you can’t properly see where the red circles are, and you can’t see if there are any visions coming from the left or right, or if any spawned on top of you. All of this not to mention how bad it is for someone without perfect vision to clearly spot the AoE on that floor texture.

2: The vision of mortality gang bang.
Using some pulls available to me I’m able to pull the visions into the whirlpools to quicken the process, unfortunately the problem starts when I run out of pulls. They move so slow that by the time 1 reaches the far off whirpool, there will be some 2 or 3 other visions there on top of the orb, thus making it impossible for you to pick up the orb without dying. Forcing you to run around in hopes that you’ll get an orb without visions nearby, wasting precious time.

3: Liadri’s auto attack.
You’re able to avoid that somewhat well using swiftness or moving from left to right. However due to the chaotic nature of the fight odds are you’ll have to mostly ignore it. The claws she sends out deals on average 2k damage. This ruins the chance for low HP classes. On top of avoiding AoE, leading visions, and doing it all quickly, they have to deal with their HP quickly depleting as their one heal is on cooldown.

4: The Cosmic Rifts.
Adding to the fact of the already bad camera, these orbs that pull you will often spawn outside of your line of sight, making you only find out they’re there when it’s too late. Not to mention the bug (hopefully) that you can’t hit them with ranged skills.

Lastly, and more importantly…

5: The time.
Unless you’re damage focused (zerk) you’re gonna have a very stressful time trying to beat her within the time limit. With the running around to get orbs, escaping her to try to heal up, to actually fighting back to reduce her huge HP pool, you won’t have much time to complete it unless you’re a damage build. Some classes just have it ten times worst because not all classes have decent viable constant damage dealing skills.

Now, all these things by themselves don’t pose much of a threat, but by putting them all together and adding the variety of 1 hit kills in this fight is what really makes it more frustrating than challenging.

Honestly what ties this whole parade of ridiculousness together is the time limit.

On my very first try (after I read up information online on how to fight her) I went pretty far. I managed to get her to 2nd phase, and I was slowly chipping away at her HP while running around trying to survive. Sadly though once she was at about 25% HP the time ran out.

Even though all her mechanisms are very difficult and frustrating, it’s not so unreasonable. What truly makes it unreasonable is the time limit on top of everything else.

I love a good challenge, and I for one am alright accepting the fact that not all content is for everyone. That you really need to master your class, the enemy and everything available to you to overcome the challenge, but this isn’t a challenge.

I could go on describing and giving examples as to what this one fight does wrong that really doesn’t make it a good challenge, instead only makes it a frustrating hassle, but I went on for long enough as it is. Maybe I’ll talk about it later.